by Jack Murphy
Inside the barbican, he was greeted by someone sent to collect him.
“Hail, blade master,” a voice echoed through the corridor.
“Hey, what’s up?” the blade master responded.
Stepping forward, he saw that he was being greeted by Azarian, one of the reptile people from the faraway island of Dresh. He was of the knight class and wore ornate plate armor that reflected his stature in the paladin guild.
“Follow me if you please,” the knight said.
The blade master was led into a courtyard surrounded by high walls and circular towers with spires on top. Nothing moved. Even the moisture seemed to hang in the air. A burned-out carriage had caved in on itself and now rested in the center of the courtyard, its wooden struts blackened from flames. His hand drifted toward the hilt of his katana.
“You won’t need that here,” his escort said casually.
Inside one of the towers, they climbed a circular staircase. Their footsteps echoed on into forever, bouncing around inside the castle and swirling around them like phantoms. At the top, they entered a dark corridor illuminated by only a few torches. Down the hall, his escort stopped in front of a door.
“You are our guest,” he said with a nod toward the blade master.
“That’s good to hear.”
“Just inside please.”
The blade master opened the door and stepped inside. There was a stone pedestal in the center of the room, covered with some kind of fur. A single torch flickered against the stone walls.
This was it.
“Thank you for joining us,” a voice said, cutting through the darkness.
The blade master didn't flinch. He had been expecting it.
“I already crashed the party. Saying hello seemed like the least I could do.”
“We appreciate that very much,” the voice said from the shadows.
“We?”
“Never ask about the weight of the cauldrons.”
“Excuse me?”
“It is a proverb, meaning that you show your hand too soon.”
The blade master watched the mage materialize in front of his eyes. Gradually, the shadows moved, turning to ectoplasm, an ethereal phantasmagorical entity consolidating in front of him. The mage stepped forward, his eyes burning like coals.
“I’ve waited a long time to meet you, Deckard.”
The blade master was silent.
“You’re surprised? I think we have demonstrated our capabilities at this point.”
“You have, but it seems that you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Perhaps in the opening gambit. But things did not go according to plan. You escaped several of our contingency plans and we underestimated the amount of havoc you could spread. No one expected such a mess in the Arctic.”
“Well, if you know me, you know I have a habit of doing just that.”
“Yes, you do.” The old mage stepped closer, standing just across the pedestal from the blade master.
“Still, you’ve given me a good run for my money.”
“Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean,” the mage said. His English was impeccable, but it was clear that he had first learned British English, not American.
“God plays his games and we play ours.”
“Indeed. Do you know what my job is Deckard?”
“War by proxy? International terrorism?”
“Those are simply tactics. My job is to manage the decline of your country.”
“Isn't that a bit presumptuous?”
“America is finished as a global power. It is only a matter of time now; the data is very clear on this. Your economy is slowing down, your thoughts are crystallizing, and your military can no long win wars. My job is to help ease your country into its place as a second-rate power.”
“Ouch.”
“This is a dangerous time. Dangerous because a declining power is capable of lashing out in desperation as it tries to hold on to what power it has in vain.”
“Or it could be dangerous because a rising power has miscalculated by several moves, assuming that an attempted power grab will be far easier in theory than in practice.”
“This is not the fait accompli, Deckard, this is just setting the stage. My job is to harmonize your country with the coming global order. Unlike yours, our order will work. It will value order over freedom, place elite governance ahead of the ridiculous idea of democracy.”
“Democracy has worked out pretty well for us, and for much of the world.”
“It did work very well for you, but the world has changed. The rules have changed. America is the butcher of the world. You can never put down the butcher knife and become a Buddha. Our actions against America are nothing more than looting an already burning house.”
The blade master looked away.
“Do you know what one factor convinced me that now was the time to act, Deckard?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Factional infighting amongst your most talented generals. The mysterious death of General McCoy. Then, several very powerful elites die just as mysteriously in New York City. The Biermann brothers, for instance.”
“I seem to recall reading about that somewhere.”
“As America comes apart at the seams, your elites are turning on each other.”
The blade master knew he was being baited.
“But it was something else that really convinced some like-minded people, Deckard. Convinced us that the end is near for your country. That was the Crown of the Pacific incident. A maritime accident? Please. Someone liquidated much of the elite class that night. What do you think really happened?”
“People keep asking me and I keep telling them not to believe every conspiracy theory on the internet.”
“It’s not a conspiracy if you lived it, Deckard. We have studied American political fault lines very closely. We know your political cliques, we know your technical capabilities, we know your stovepipes, and over the last several days we have taken advantage of this knowledge. While we set the stage for a new global order, your government is preparing to wage another misguided campaign in the Middle East, blaming the Islamic State for the actions that I have orchestrated.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to tell me that.”
“Perhaps not, but it hardly matters. You can’t prove anything, and even if you could, your bureaucrats are in such a deep case of path dependency that it is far too late for them to change their minds.”
“I got the drop on you in Barrow. So what’s our next play?”
The mage smiled.
“We run, you chase.”
Chapter 17
Canadian Arctic
Deckard stood on the bridge as the Carrickfergus entered the northwest passage. Blue water with floating chunks of ice bobbed everywhere around their ship. In many places, the ice had not completely melted and Canadian icebreakers had smashed channels through for commercial ships to pass. Now a major maritime shipping route, Canada’s maze of waterways between its northern archipelago of islands was little more than a fable until recent years.
The European powers had sought out a northwest passage connecting Europe to Asia since the 1500s, but the passage wasn’t actually navigated until the early 1900s by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. The northwest passage was still considered far too hazardous for commercial shipping, even when the ice cleared for a short period during the summer months. Until now. The climate was changing, leading to more ice melting than ever before, which opened up the northwest passage like never before. Just like the Russian northeast passage, Canada’s northwest passage promised to shave hundreds of miles off commercial maritime routes.
Some even feared that an Arctic gold rush would soon happen, something that was already coming to pass as oil companies built more and more platforms in the high north. The long-term results remained to be seen. Deckard tended to believe that the climate moved in cycles, and the most grave predictions of environmentalists—that the Arctic w
ould soon be completely free of ice—had been proven completely unfounded.
The main security concerns for Arctic nations focused on increased sovereignty disputes due to claims on mineral and fossil-fuel rights, environmental concerns due to commercial exploitation, and the fact that their now-open Arctic waters could be used by adversarial nations or even non-state actors like terrorist groups and drug smugglers. As it turned out, the fears of America, Canada, Norway, and Denmark were not as alarmist as they may have sounded a decade ago.
Deckard turned as his laptop began to beep. It was Tampa.
Clicking on the icon to accept the call, he was connected with the JSOC think tank.
Gary appeared on the screen. “Deckard, we have Global Hawk refueling, then we’re putting it back out to run ISR for you,” he said, using the acronym for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
“Good news. We’re looking over our sea maps and the latest updates from the Canadian government on the status of the ice out here,” Deckard informed Gary and his team. “The waters are navigable for the most part, but the bad guys are still restricted, channelized between the islands and ice that hasn’t thawed. We are traveling on what we suspect is their most likely route and will send a list of the number two and three most likely routes for Global Hawk to scan.”
“We are also coordinating with the Canadian government. They take any violation of their sovereign waters very seriously. The Canadian prime minister also had a brief phone call with the president yesterday, expressing his full support and cooperation in standing with us during this crisis. Currently, Canadian icebreakers are heading out to help us sweep the northwest passage. Canadian Rangers are being called up as well.”
“Canadian Rangers?” Deckard asked.
“Not like American Rangers,” Craig spoke up. “Most of them are Inuits who have lived their whole lives up in the Arctic. They are better acquainted with Arctic military operations than anyone in the U.S. military, so they could prove to be a huge force multiplier.”
“We need all the help we can get up here.”
“We’ll make sure you guys are put in touch so you can liaison and deconflict with each other.”
“I also want you to figure out which airstrips are active in the Canadian Arctic,” Deckard said. “If we can land my C-27J airplanes somewhere up here, we can carry out a relentless pursuit, keeping the heat on them, leap-frogging ahead of their positions. I doubt the Russians will clear airspace to let my pilots take off at this point, though.”
“We’ll let you know.”
Deckard signed out and looked back out at the ocean.
The enemy was out there, and he knew they were planning something.
* * *
The mage slid the furs off the portal. The dark lords continued their quest through the Arctic wasteland, a glowing dot on the portal’s map showing their path.
“You’re sure the submarine can’t surface?” The mage asked.
“Yes,” the necromancer answered. “Too much damage to the mast.”
“And the dry dock?”
“Still usable.”
The mage nodded.
“Deploy our reinforcements at the soonest opportunity.”
“As you wish,” the necromancer said, already preparing a communiqué.
Chapter 18
“There they are!” Nikita yelled over the radio.
The sniper had spotted the enemy ship from up on the deck.
With the Carrickfergus traveling at full speed, they had caught up with the dagger-shaped ship in a channel carved out by a passing Canadian icebreaker. After taking watch in shifts, Nikita had finally spotted something through his sniper scope as they traversed the Prince of Wales Strait. The strait was about 20 kilometers across, and it took them deeper into the northwest passage. An icebreaker had opened a path through the ice, but since it had been cut, the wind and shifting tides had turned a straight line through the ice into a haphazard-looking zigzag path forward.
“Gotcha,” Otter said from the helm.
Deckard stood next to the ship’s captain as he maneuvered them through the cut in the ice.
“We’ve got them now,” Otter continued. “They can’t hydroplane their ship in a narrow passage that cuts back and forth like this. I can close the distance.” Otter looked over at Deckard. “The rest is on you.”
“Get us in range,” Deckard ordered. “We’ll handle them.” Reaching for the PA system, Deckard mashed down the transmit button so he could talk to everyone on the ship. “All hands on deck; the enemy is in sight. I want snipers to report in to Nikita. First Platoon, split in half and cover left and right flanks from the deck. Second Platoon, prepare to support 1st Platoon and be ready for follow-on operations.”
For now, it made sense to keep one platoon inside and behind cover for a boarding action while the other platoon engaged the enemy using maximum standoff.
“They’ve spotted us too,” Nikita’s voice crackled over the radio from outside.
“They sure have,” Otter confirmed. “You can see them kicking up a wake behind them as they try to speed up, but this channel jackknifes left and right so often that they will get nowhere fast.”
Sure enough, Deckard watched as the black ship alternated between lifting out of the water for a hundred meters and then sinking back down before repeating the process. They were bottlenecked by the ice. Deckard laughed.
The Arctic was a bitch like that.
* * *
Nikita watched through the 10-power scope on his HK417. Behind him, Aslan, his sniper partner and spotter, was assembling one of their .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifles. The second Samruk sniper team was also getting into position on the other side of the ship, climbing to the roof over their living quarters. Looking over at the other team setting up in the open, Nikita clicked his radio to talk to the other sniper team leader.
“Find some cover,” he said in Russian and then again in English. The sniper team had dual nationalities. One of them was a Kazakh and the other was an American who had served as a sniper in a Ranger battalion. “We had some guys blinded on the last mission.”
Finding cover would help, but the reality was that they didn’t have any real countermeasures to deal with the laser weapons or the seizure grenade that had taken out Deckard and his entry team.
The other sniper team scooted under the lifeboat attached to the roof and set up shop. Nikita and Aslan used the actual control tower of the ship as cover, just barely poking out from the side to glass their target. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing. For concealment, they had taped a tarp around the metal railing on the deck and cut a hole in it to shoot through.
Their firing position had been built little by little as each sniper rotated on and off guard duty. One of the chairs that had been torn out of the living area belowdecks was used to sit on, and the railing in front had been lined with foam padding to rest the rifle on. Between the two, it was hoped that much of the vibration from the ship would be eliminated while trying to acquire and kill targets. Life was filled with sub-optimal decisions, especially in combat. You chose the least of two evils and rolled with what you had. They were close to the centerline of the ship, which would help mitigate the movement of the vessel on the water and was far away from the vibrations caused by the engines. That was about as good as it was going to get.
Aslan slid up next to Nikita with the Barrett. Handing him the HK417, he hefted the weight of the anti-material rifle and began settling into a steady firing position. Turning the adjustment ring on the Night Force scope, he dialed it down from 10 power to 3.5 power. At high magnification, it was too easy to lose sight of his target on the rolling ocean. The .50-caliber round of the Barrett had some ass behind it, something they would need in high winds. The lighter 7.62mm rounds would be easily blown off target as high-pressure systems collapsed into low-pressure systems, causing gusts of wind around the Carrickfergus. The .50 caliber was primarily used for destroying equipment, bu
t in this case, it wasn’t as if they had to worry about blasting through bulkheads and hurting friendlies. They were in combat.
Nikita looked over the enemy ship, prioritizing his targets. Four crewmen were on the deck moving around. They looked to be preparing some kind of hard points. Then a hatch opened and two more enemies wearing black uniforms emerged carrying a long tube. It looked like a recoilless rifle. Sweeping across the deck, he spotted several antennae, a small radar dome, and he could see the wash created by the rudder and prop. He needed to take them all out as fast as possible, if possible.
“Range?” Nikita asked.
Aslan sat next to him with the HK417 at his feet and sighted in with his laser rangefinder.
“Two thousand three hundred meters,” he answered. “Two thousand two hundred. Closing fast.” The Carrickfergus would be on top of the enemy soon. Meanwhile, the enemy was getting the recoilless rifle mounted on a tripod on the deck.
Nikita changed channels on his radio and called down to Otter on the bridge.
“Wind check.”
“OK, I have twenty knots of relative wind and fifteen knots of true wind, moving from west to east.”
The ballistic solution for this shot was already complicated, and the difficulties in making a wind call only made it that much harder. As the numbers ticked down in Nikita’s head, and as the ships grew closer to one another, he realized this would be the most difficult shot of his sniper career.
Thankfully, the ship had an anemometer and wind vane, which allowed him to separate relative wind from true wind. Relative wind was the actual wind plus that created by the forward movement of the Carrickfergus. Relative wind would affect the ballistics of his rifle when he fired, but become less relevant as the bullet continued along its trajectory toward his targets. Beyond that, unlike on land, there were no trees or mountains to interfere with wind speed. Fifteen knots put him at a 17 miles per hour crosswind from left to right.
